Alright, that's it. I'm moving to Canada.

Last time I was up there in '18 at a business meeting in Calgary, I picked up on some tension between Quebec and everyone else.  And earlier when I was in Quebec I picked up some tension between Quebec and everyone else.  The only thing different was who was supposedly at fault.

Not a reason for not going though.

My wife's peeps on her mom's side are from Quebec.  We rode a motorcycle up through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York on a quest to visit her relatives without getting on a single divided highway.  We failed at the latter but not miserably.  I have never in my life felt like I cheated the time / space continuum as I did when we entered Quebec on the back road and had to awaken the guard on duty who only asked who we were going to see, why we picked that crossing and not the main one, and whether or not we had any weapons.  And just like that I was somewhere that looked like a foreign country, felt like a foreign country, and WAS a foreign country.  Just a few miles from old familiar USA.  Arrive at my wife's aunt's and aside from the smiles and hugs have to wait for her son to get there to interpret.  The old folks typically aren't bilingual.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

The media needs something to talk about

In reply to NOHOME :

I like your answer. Nothing is really free.  It all depends on where you want to spend your money. The Us spends its money on the military, other countries have other priorities thst bring down their military spending percentage.   anyway. I'm diverging. 
 

 And I already live in Minnesota. 
 

Peabody said:

In reply to A 401 CJ :

The media needs something to talk about

Agree but it wasn't the media.  It was people I talked face to face with.  In Quebec, if I remember correctly, it had something to do with not being able to send children to English school which was perceived as better and as being wholly unfair.

Had a call from an American friend interested in moving up here yesterday. He picked my brain for quite a while.  He and his wife want to flee gun violence. We have other friends who moved up a few years ago for the same reason. Canada is perceived as a safer America. 

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

Canada is perceived as a safer America. 

This is a fact.  All violet crime statistics show the US as much higher than Canada.  With property crime( theft/ 0pickpocketing) Canada can be higher than the us. 
 

Canada isn't immune to violence and crime. It's just 3x better than the US. 
 

my kids in the us do active shooter drills. Do Canadian kids? I had a friend who grew up on Baffin Island and they did polar bear drills incase one was around or got In the school. 

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Active shooter drills are not a thing here... we've probably had fewer school shootings ever than the US has had this year.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Since you edited your post I guess what I said no longer makes sense.

There's always some 'tension' between Quebec and the other provinces, usually involving their language laws, or the amount of federal money they get but at the end of the day it's not like it really matters. The things they do would never fly in any other province, and people bitch and complain about it, but that's just the way it is.

In reply to A 401 CJ :

Ted Cruz was born in Calgary and it’s likely he would be more appreciated there than in the Rest Of Canada (ROC). He went through the process of renouncing his Canadian citizenship a few years ago.

In reply to Rons :

Probably about the same time that Canadian property values started to go up.

When they "arm the teachers", we're out.  Wife's mom was born and raised in Quebec so we will pursue that route if we can.  Otherwise, Portugal might be an option.

BoxheadTim said:

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

So this $2,400 application is what confuses me.  Who, that would actually benefit from losing their citizenship for tax reasons, will find $2,400 a stumbling block?  If you can't come up with $2,400 as part of your tax, inheritance, retirement, business, strategy, then the chances are you are probably in one of the lower tax brackets where overall US tax burden is quite low.  To the people who may actually benefit from it, this probably doesn't count as belly button lint.  

It's not only $2400 - that's just the fee for the application. If it is granted, you then have to pay an exit tax that tends to be quite substantial if you're not at church mouse levels of wealth.

People who have trouble scraping the $2400 together may be looking to renounce US citizenship for other reasons - for example, they may be an "accidental US citizen" (yes, those exist) who has just found out that they owe the US government a tax return and potentially taxes for the rest of their lives despite never having even live there or planning to live here, unless they renounce their citizenship. This is actually less uncommon than people think, and a not too untypical scenario is if one of the parents is a US citizen living abroad, for example[1].

Another typical scenario is if you're an immigrant into the US from a country that doesn't allow or put very high hurdles in front of dual citizenship (like Germany), and you lose/have to give up your original citizenship if you want to become a US citizen. Let's say in old age you want to go back to the country you emigrated from and want the citizenship back - you may have to give up the US citizenship in order to be able to do that. 

[1] Yes, there's the whole argument about "well, the parents should've known". Yeah, they should've, but they don't always. I've heard of a case or two where someone got yelled at why they were trying to enter the US on a foreign passport despite being a citizen, and that's because they simply didn't know.

When I sold my house in Canada (several years after moving to the US), I had to undergo an audit of some sort to ensure I had no more tax liability in Canada since I was getting rid of my last major asset there. No exit tax or anything, just making sure I didn't owe anything before I stopped paying taxes for good.

The taxation aspect was actually my biggest concern about getting my US citizenship, I knew I was basically signing up for life.

 Healthcare, well, yeah. I've seen what incurable cancer looks like in the Canadian system. My mom did not lose her house.

P5Racer (formerly BMWGeoff) said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Active shooter drills are not a thing here... we've probably had fewer school shootings ever than the US has had this year.

We were starting to do lockdown drills back when I was still in highschool  in the early 2000's and I know they still do that sort of thing. Now they were more a of a generic thing and not targeted towards an active shooter, I'd imagine drills like that are done in a different light in the US. 

On the healthcare thing I had shoulder surgery 3 weeks ago. I had to wait 6 months to get it (with Covid delays in there) but my out of pocket costs were $7.52 for the prescritoion drugs I picked up afterwards and that was it, even the sling was included! It was only day surgery but  a quick google search shows costs from $6900-31,000 for the same procedure in the US. I think I've been to the hospital 4 times in the past to have that shoulder popped back in as well, the biggest expense with them were $40 for ambulance rides on two of those occasions. I don't mind paying taxes and I'm glad the system is there for everyone to use, it's not perfect but you won't hear me complain about it.

In reply to adam525i :

$40 ambulance rides?  Jeez that's cheap.  My brother in law got into a major crash in california on his bicycle in a steep mountain road.  He was airlifted to the hospital, due to no ability to get an ambulance close to him and the severity of his injuries.  The airlift cost was $60k....  Luckily my sister works for a large fruit company from the bay area that pays insanely well and has great medical coverage in exchange for most of your diginity and life force..  They had to pay $7k and thought they were lucky, just for the chopper ride...  Not a perfect comparisson.. but yeah..

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to adam525i :

$40 ambulance rides?  Jeez that's cheap.  My brother in law got into a major crash in california on his bicycle in a steep mountain road.  He was airlifted to the hospital, due to no ability to get an ambulance close to him and the severity of his injuries.  The airlift cost was $60k....  Luckily my sister works for a large fruit company from the bay area that pays insanely well and has great medical coverage in exchange for most of your diginity and life force..  They had to pay $7k and thought they were lucky, just for the chopper ride...  Not a perfect comparisson.. but yeah..

I'm not liking that.  This insanity needs to stop.  I saw a documentary the other day where even capitalist-to-the-core Charlie Munger said that the for profit US healthcare system was a bonafide fiasco. 

My oldest son was born with a fatal congenital heart defect. We found help groups and many of the American parents chose palliative care as the cost was to high to do anything else. Being Canadian that was never an option. Three open heart surgeries and some others and he is a happy healthy 22 year old.  But the cost out of pocket would have been over a half million dollars. I am a fiscal conservative but I would never give up our health care.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to adam525i :

$40 ambulance rides?  Jeez that's cheap.  My brother in law got into a major crash in california on his bicycle in a steep mountain road.  He was airlifted to the hospital, due to no ability to get an ambulance close to him and the severity of his injuries.  The airlift cost was $60k....  Luckily my sister works for a large fruit company from the bay area that pays insanely well and has great medical coverage in exchange for most of your diginity and life force..  They had to pay $7k and thought they were lucky, just for the chopper ride...  Not a perfect comparisson.. but yeah..

Our first child was a little pre mature. She had some breathing issues that our local hospital didn't feel like they could cope with if things got worse. She was airlifted to the nearest major hospital about 30 miles away. Because it was a hospital to hospital lift (even though they had an ambulance for the last couple miles from the landing pad) our cost was 0$. 

As a type one diabetic it's really hard to talk to anyone across the boarder about treatment or the price of drugs. I usually avoid the topic whenever possible. 
 

I watched my mom fight cancer for years in our free medical system.

The last year was hell and the incompetence was infuriating. I'd have gladly paid for better care.

Not saying the American system is better than ours. Just saying there's a hell of a lot we can improve on. The docs and nurses were fantastic but the help was awful.

In reply to ShawnG :

The thing is that in the US, you can't just use any healthcare you want. You have to use the services that are approved by your insurer. There's no guarantee of competence or the ability to pay more (unless you want to pay EVERYTHING) if you want someone else.

The homecare folks who took care of my dad were really good and very involved.

In reply to infinitenexus :

I didn't read the whole thread but am a little confused. It sounds like one of the issues holding you back is lack of a bachelors degree, and it also sounds like a student visa is one of the easiest way to get in. 

Why don't you just apply for a student visa and get your bachelors degree in Canada, and then apply for the work visa when your points look better?

ShawnG said:

I watched my mom fight cancer for years in our free medical system.

The last year was hell and the incompetence was infuriating. I'd have gladly paid for better care.

Not saying the American system is better than ours. Just saying there's a hell of a lot we can improve on. The docs and nurses were fantastic but the help was awful

 Sorry about your mom.  I went through the exact same thing.  Stage IV ovarian when she finally went to have the pain checked out - she had wanted to finish her last school year and retire before figuring out what exactly was bothering her.  Big mistake.  The doctor gave her 4 years and that's about how long she lasted.  Tried every chemo recipe that the University of Virginia had. Fortunately, being a lifelong school teacher but never really earning a lot, she did have Cadillac health insurance.  Dad's was pretty good too being retired military.  So they never suffered financially.  I don't believe that school teachers these days (mom passed in '08) have nearly as good of a plan as she did.  Everything and everyone now is being squeezed for all they can get.  2 years later the lady just down the road had almost the exact same thing happen.  Her family was nearly wiped out though.

I should correct my post, ambulance fees (Air or Ground) are $45 in Ontario. This is actually something you need to be careful of in Canada though, OHIP in Ontario makes that ambulance ride cheap for me as a resident but for someone out of province but lives in Canada the fees can be a lot higher. Basically the way our Healthcare act was written it guaranteed us treatment in a hospital or by a doctor but nothing about paramedics etc. This summer when we travel to BC that ground ambulance ride will cost me $848 and an air ambulance ride $2,746/hour, for a resident of BC they will only pay $80.

In reply to adam525i :

Re BC: that’s if they bother to send a bill.

May one ask where and when?

In reply to Rons :

We're in Vancouver for a few days over the July 1 weekend and then flying up to Whitehorse, YT for the week and then back to Vancouver for the weekend again before heading home. We haven't been out to see family (BC and YT) since late summer 2019 so it should be a nice trip.

CrustyRedXpress said:

In reply to infinitenexus :

I didn't read the whole thread but am a little confused. It sounds like one of the issues holding you back is lack of a bachelors degree, and it also sounds like a student visa is one of the easiest way to get in. 

Why don't you just apply for a student visa and get your bachelors degree in Canada, and then apply for the work visa when your points look better?

Because with the student visa I would only be allowed to work 20 hours a week. I would have to support my family on 20 hrs/week as well as pay for college, which isn't realistic.